Winemaker Notes
This refreshing wine has pronounced citrus notes of lemon and grapefruit. Full-bodied on the palate with intense flavor and vibrant acidity leads to a long and complex finish.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A very fragrant wine with aromas of white flowers, salt, lemons and stones. The palate is citrusy and bright, with lemon and grapefruit flavors. There’s pleasant richness that adds texture and complexity to the palate. Light- to medium-bodied.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The varietal 2024 Muros Antigos Alvarinho is their entry-level Alvarinho, linked to Melgaço, from slopes where there's more granite and less alluvial elements, silt and clay, higher altitude vineyards and shallower soils. In drier years, the vines suffer more, but that's not the case in 2024. This has some austerity and a vibrant palate, serious, still elegant, floral and perfumed, varietal with restraint. It comes in at 12.5% alcohol, with a pH of 3.14 and 5.9 grams of acidity, which means harmony and balance.
Bright and aromatic with distinctive floral and fruity characteristics, Albariño has enjoyed a surge in popularity and an increase in plantings over the last couple of decades. Thick skins allow it to withstand the humid conditions of its homeland, Rías Baixas, Spain, free of malady, and produce a weighty but fresh white. Somm Secret—Albariño claims dual citizenship in Spain and Portugal. Under the name Alvarinho, it thrives in Portugal’s northwestern Vinho Verde region, which predictably, borders part of Spain’s Rías Baixas.
A cheerful, translucid, lemon-yellow and slightly pétillant white wine, Vinho Verde literally means ‘green wine’ and is named after the northwest Portugese region from which it originates. The ‘green’ in the name refers to the youthful state in which the wines are customarily released and consumed, not the color of the wine.
It is typically a blend of various percentages of Alvarinho, Loureiro, Trajadura, and Pedernã (Arinto). Following initial alcoholic fermentation, a natural, secondary malolactic conversion in cask produces carbon dioxide, giving Vinho Verde its charmingly light sparkle.